From Grace
by hexterah
Summary: A post-NJO story with a dark Jacen going to visit Tenel Ka and acting like a tool to some of his friends on the way. One-poster/short story. Written: 02/21/2004


**Author's Note: **I wrote this a couple days after "Into Your Arms" and I guess I needed something way angsty to balance out the yay and mush of that story. So this is just a little post-NJO story about a confused Jacen and his return to Tenel Ka (after being a total tool towards some old friends) – and another story of mine where they have a daughter before it happened. I don't know why I kept doing this, with the whole daughter thing -- I was obsessed. ;) Written: 02/21/2004.

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**From Grace**

He had been away on a mission for three years. Three years on another planet. Three years away from civilization. Three years away from his family. Three years away from his wife.

Their marriage was a secret and the only other people who knew were his sister and his wife's two closest advisors. They were married, then he was sent away to a base on some remote planet where he had to hunt down dark Jedi and their trainees. It all had to be done with ysalamiris surrounding them.

Hunting them down and ridding the galaxy of them wasn't the hard task.

Staying sane was.

Jacen Solo was fine with it for the first few months, but waking up on the same empty dank cot every morning began to grate on his system. And then news from the outside world filtered through the small team as they got it. He had read datapads with headlines on them.

'BOTHANS RENEW PEACE TREATY WITH GALACTIC ALLIANCE'

'SCIENCE DISCOVERY HELPS ENHANCE BACTA EFFECTS'

'HAPAN QUEEN MOTHER TO WED AND PRODUCE HEIR FOR THRONE'

_Wait... what?_

Jacen's mind spiraled downward from that point on. He tried endlessly to breach the ysalamiri, to try to contact her through their connection and ask what was going on, to ask her anything, to just feel her presence burning bright.

But he couldn't break through the walls. They didn't think they would need the ysalamiri that long for the mission, but they ended up using them for roughly two and a half years, to keep the darkness that surrounded them out.

The handful of beings on the mission were all Jedi, some full-fledged, some still training. Zekk and Jacen were the two with the most training. Zekk was the one who had told him about the headlines and given him his datapad to read them. Zekk was the only one besides Jacen to make it off of the planet alive.

And now Zekk was lying in the cabin of the ship they stole with a broken leg, crying out in anguish to the pilot.

All of the dark Jedi they were sent to get rid of were dead.

One newly created dark Jedi remained.

"Jacen!" Zekk writhed on the empty floor, his hands clutching at his broken leg. "Jacen, please! What are you doing?!"

As the ship blazed away from the ysalamiri-ridden planet, Jacen could feel the Force flowing back into his body and his mind. But instead of the warmth and light it usually fed into him, a dark cold feeling flared inside of him.

Two and a half years without the Force, Jacen Solo gets it back and it's not as pleasant as he remembered it.

"We're going to visit some people, Zekk! So shut up and pretend like you don't exist!"

"Huh...?"

"We're going to see my wife."

"Your...?" Zekk rolled over and shut his eyes. An image of their childhood friend flashed before his eyes. "Tenel Ka..." Zekk whispered to himself, before falling into a deep stream of unconscious.

Before leaving, Zekk had changed out of his jumpsuit and donned his brown Jedi robes. Jacen hadn't changed. He suddenly liked the jumpsuit.

It was black, damp with sweat and blood. It reeked of death, burnt flesh and bile. The last days on the planet had been nonstop fighting, hacking, slashing, hiding and dying. Jacen watched trainees and Jedi alike get stabbed, beaten and killed...

It drove him over the edge.

He knew he was becoming the thing he despised.

But with the bloodbath of the previous days and the fact that he had sat alone for years while his wife married another man... something in his mind told him he deserved revenge.

Solo didn't care who felt him arrive. He watched his uncle rush out to greet the ship... his Uncle knew something was wrong. Jacen dropped Zekk's almost lifeless body to the floor.

"Get him out of my sight, before I do it myself."

His trip back to the Galactic Alliance headquarters was short. No one had any time to talk, or beat some sense into him.

Jacen was slipping towards the Dark Side.

Entering the training hall of the base, he saw four people.

Stopping in on where his sister and Kyp Durron sat, Jaina clutched at him, "Jacen, what's wrong? Tell me what happened."

He let her cling to him, he let her beg. His brown eyes just stared right past her. She was seconds away from beating the answers out of him when his mind left her presence and turned to Kyp.

"Anakin? More powerful than me?" Jacen flicked his wrist and Kyp was knocked backwards out of his chair, Jaina rushing to his side as Kyp scowled.

"Hi girls." Jacen crossed the room to where Danni Quee was standing at a table, fiddling with some papers.

Danni was staring wide-eyed at him, surprised at his display of attitude with Kyp and Jaina. Tahiri Veila stopped slashing air with her lightsaber and froze, the same expression of confusion.

"Jacen, what's---"

Jacen walked behind the tall, blonde scientist and grabbed her arms, pulling them around behind her back.

"Danni, remember the way you used to look at me when we were on our mission to Zonama Sekot?"

She didn't respond.

"Never look at me like that again." Shoving her forwards, Jacen made his way around tables and traning devices to Tahiri, who was staring in shock at the older man.

"I was supposed to give you something awhile back... what was it again?" A pause. "Oh yeah." Jacen drove Tahiri backwards into the wall with the Force. He then stepped forward and pressed her back, cupping her chin in his right hand, his left splayed across her stomach, holding her back. His lips descended on hers in a kiss that spanned eternity, yet ended as quickly as it began. When Jacen pulled away, his teeth took with them a patch of skin from Tahiri's lip. Spitting it to the ground, he nonchalantly raised his hands and looked upwards.

"There ya go, Anakin."

Spinning around, Jacen exited the room, leaving the four humans in a state of shock.

Back to the docking bay he fled, skipping wildly down the hall... knocking people over, gnashing his teeth at passersby. The darkness had stolen Jacen Solo and he was swimming happily in every second of it.

And it was time to share it with his wife.

Hapes was his next stop and in less than eight standard hours he was there. News of his rampage had already reached the Fountain Palace and the Queen Mother sat in her chambers, in a calm daze. Her Admiral and her most loyal handmaiden stood by her side; the three of them were the only people present in her quarters.

"Why do you think he is doing this, your highness?" The handmaiden spoke softly.

"I do not know, Anhaje." Queen Mother Tenel Ka Chume Djo turned her head slightly, the fabric of her gown shifting in the chair. Anhaje stood beside her on her right, while the Hapan Admiral, Gadell Vessau, stood stoically on her left.

"Do you believe that you should be worried?" The Admiral inquired.

Tenel Ka could only shrug.

And that was when Jacen came crashing through the doors, guards on his tail. He thrashed his hand out behind him and drove them all backwards with a dash of lightning before stopping meters behind the chair his wife was seated in.

Jacen spoke in a solid whisper--- a hiss.

"Can I please speak to my _wife_ in private?"

Both Gadell and Anhaje glanced worriedly down to the Queen Mother. She slowly nodded.

Leaving the couple alone, they hurried to close the door behind them and plant themselves beside it. They couldn't stop what was about to happen in that room. Nothing could.

Tenel Ka sat the wooden chair, staring through the window ahead of her. She knew what was coming, she could feel it. She knew there was nothing she could do or say to stop it. Stalking up behind her, Jacen draped his arms around her neck, placing his lips to her ear. She could feel his hot breath on her skin, like it was that night all those years ago. Their wedding night.

"So where is this child I kept hearing so much about? And the Admiral, is that who your husband is? I go away for three years... three years... I thought you loved me. So much, we've been through so much and this is what I get."

"Jacen..."

"I don't want to hear it." Jacen brought his hands up to her neck.

"What you heard is a lie. Political reasons. I could go further into it, but I know nothing will change your mind. Carry on."

He carried on. He let jealousy and revenge take over as electricity soared through his hands and onto her skin, slowing down her system.

He heard her dying whisper, as she crumbled from the chair to the ground, "She is yours, Jacen." Her eyes fell shut, as she closed the life out of them. "I love you."

As he heard those words, his mind raced years back, to days before he had been sent away, the night they shared after their secret wedding ceremony. Teasing each other, talking, cuddling, kissing. They had made love.

He suddenly sensed a young presence behind him, that blared in the Force and he spun around to stare into the eyes of his late wife. The eyes set in an adorable roughly Hapan visage, with a full head of messy brown hair.

He stared at himself. He stared at Tenel Ka.

They had never seen each other before in their lives... but each knew who the other was.

"Daddy?" Her voice was quiet.

It was their daughter. Tenel Ka's daughter. _His_ daughter.

_She was having a baby._ Our baby. _And she needed an excuse for the public. Oh Force, what have I done?_

The angelic face of the child shattered the darkness and Jacen kneeled in front of her.

"Daddy? What's wrong with Mommy? What happened to Mommy?"

Her words came in a jumble as Jacen gently placed a kiss on the girl's forehead and nudged her towards the door of the quarters. He didn't even know her name.

"I love you, sweetheart."

She exited the room and the door shut.

The silence enveloped the room and Jacen took it has an invitation to put his hands to his own neck. He let the lightning spark. It fizzled throughout his body as tears of blood trickled from the corners of his eyes.

He collapsed beside the body of his wife. Jacen Solo knew he could never live with what he had done. And it was too late to change the past.

And outside the room, in the comforting arms of Gadell Vessau and Anhaje, the orphan cried.


End file.
